Caroling Out in the Snow
by the ramblin rose
Summary: Caryl, Caryl and Lydia. ZA. Oneshot. Carol and Daryl sneak away to make their own Christmas traditions.


**AN: Someone requested "caroling out in the snow" as a prompt and this is what happened. I'm not even sure what this is, but here you go. LOL Please forgive me.**

**There's a little smut warning for you here.**

**I own nothing from the Walking Dead.**

**I hope you enjoy! Let me know what you think! **

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There was an odd sort of adjustment period that everyone went through when the Whisperers were gone and the world surrounding them was truly still and silent. Everyone held their breath at the beginning—always expecting the next shoe to drop. And then, slowly, they all started to breathe again, but breathing felt strange. It had, somehow, become a skill that had to be learned.

In learning to breathe—and to wake up every day looking for a driving force other than the simple and constant battle to remain alive—people started to learn a great deal of other skills.

Daryl knew there was a great deal of change taking place the first time that he saw someone, in Alexandria where they had settled, painting a picture on their porch. This was becoming a world where they created art—even if Daryl didn't particularly appreciate the style of that particular painting.

He recognized the shift when he saw several people lounging in the grass of their yards consuming books and munching on food. Alexandria was a place, too, where people consumed art—and they did so with leisure and without worry.

Children played in the streets. They laughed and they ran and they sang songs passed down from a world that they would never know—and more children were born into the world as a promise that the whole thing would keep going.

It wasn't the end—not like they had once thought that it was.

And they could all breathe again.

Perhaps the greatest proof that Daryl had, though, that a shift had taken place from the worry and the suffering of the time of the Whisperers was in his own home. His home. A two-story, four-bedroom house that was unlike anything he would have ever dreamed of calling home in a past life. It was his home. The magic of the home, itself, was enough to make Daryl feel like he was living in a world that he could have only imagined even some odd months before, but inside his home?

With the shift toward peace—the shift toward life—everyone had started to see life differently. Everyone had started to appreciate it more. Everyone had started to pay more attention to the little things that could finally become the big things.

And Daryl had kissed Carol.

Just like that. He had kissed her on Michonne's porch. He kissed her, without warning and without prompting, in the middle of a conversation about what she might make for dinner for the household, and she'd offered for him to bring Lydia from his house, all the way to Michonne's house, where Carol lived a little like an attic-dwelling aunt while the world thawed from the freeze of fear that had settled over it.

And Carol had kissed Daryl back.

In the same kind of feeling that Daryl had experienced the very first time that he'd successfully stepped into the funnel of a whirlwind that he saw whipping near him, Daryl's whole life had changed. It had changed beautifully and wonderfully for the better.

Soon, Carol no longer lived in Michonne's upstairs room. She lived, instead, in the master bedroom of Daryl's home where she shared his bed and his life. She turned her attention from being something of a nanny and housekeeper for Michonne, who was always more than appreciative for Carol's efforts to keep herself busy and occupied during the otherwise quiet days, to being the person that made the house Daryl had claimed into a home.

And with the changes that flipped the whole world upside down for all of them, Daryl and Carol became proud parents to a beautiful, bouncing, baby girl.

Before she'd fully come to them, there had been a long, hard period of nurturing and caring. There had been worry that they wouldn't be enough for her and that she might never actually be theirs. Daryl had doubted his abilities to be a father—especially given the fact that he'd never known a decent father, himself. But Carol had loved him through his insecurities. She'd promised him that, because of his father, he would be a wonderful father. He would always know what he didn't want to do and, because of that, he would always make the best decisions. Carol feared becoming a mother again. She cried about it. She worried about it. She swore that she would, somehow, cause the loss of the girl. And Daryl held her hands through the worry and stayed up with her through the long nights. He promised her that they would be enough to help her blossom into adulthood and to become everything she could possibly dream of being.

Together, they did everything they could to make their home warm and welcoming. They did everything they could to make the kind of place where she could grow and learn and, more than anything, be happy.

Though they had been hoping to become a family through all of their hard work and preparation, and though Daryl and Carol had prepared and discussed everything that might happen, the moment that it truly happened had caught them by surprise as surely as it had caught any family. Their beautiful baby girl had fully come to them one night—seventeen years old and anxious to drink in all the love that her brand-new parents could offer her—when they'd least expected it.

It had been after dinner. She'd stayed to help Carol with the dishes instead of retreating to her room to worry or sulk or otherwise brood over the fact that she felt like nobody loved her and accepted her—blind to the love that they tried to pour over her—proof, to Daryl and Carol, that neither of them was going to ever be truly capable of giving her what she needed. That night, though, she'd stayed and she'd helped with the dishes, so Daryl stayed, too. That night, she'd asked if they could work on the puzzle, together, that Carol had spread out over the coffee table in the living room.

And that night, before she went to bed, she'd hugged them both and placed a single kiss on each of their cheeks before bidding them goodnight with the titles that had finally made them parents.

"Mom" and "Dad."

From that moment forward, Daryl and Carol had been caught up in the frenetic experience of having a baby girl that needed to experience everything that she'd never experienced before in the short time allotted to them before the world would see her as an adult and, therefore, beyond the age of enjoying things that, unfairly, she'd never even been allowed to enjoy.

Like her father, Lydia hated being forced to sit still in the little school environment of Alexandria and learn. Like her mother, however, she could sit for hours and work her way through deciphering words on a page—especially when it was Carol, with her soft patience, that was teaching her the beauty of those words. Like her father, Lydia greatly enjoyed learning what she needed to enjoy from being outside and actually doing the things that would teach her the skills she longed to acquire.

Lydia learned to hunt and track. She learned to work on the water systems and she dappled with the electricity work required to keep their solar power working well.

She learned to cook, bake, and clean. She talked about her desire to, someday, have a home and a family of her own—when she felt she was ready for such a grand undertaking—and Daryl promised her that she would be wonderful at keeping a comfortable home and a happy family. And when she served him food, no matter how much she might still have to learn about the skill of cooking, he assured her that she would be as legendary a cook as her mother someday.

With the hot weather, Daryl taught Lydia to swim.

When the weather cooled, Carol taught Lydia how to turn to the damaged apples that nobody wanted to eat from their fruit trees into pies and cider that everyone wanted to consume ravenously.

Daryl taught Lydia about hunting in the crisp hours of the morning when they could make the best decisions about culling the deer population—now being able to choose to let those live that would be best suited to keep them eating for years to come.

Carol taught Lydia how to sew her own Halloween costume.

Daryl and Carol took her Trick-or-Treating around Alexandria for fruit and homemade odds and ends just as proudly as any other parent went walking with their children.

Daryl stalked the Thanksgiving turkey that Lydia shot, and the girl helped her mother prepare a meal that was fit for royalty. Together, they carried food down the street and filled the large table at Michonne's house for the first Thanksgiving dinner that Lydia could recall—and the first that Daryl had ever experienced where he truly felt that he had so much to be thankful for.

With the first snow, Daryl had led the ladies of his life out into the woods, and Carol had chosen the best little tree of all—or so she said. Lydia had helped Daryl cut it down, and he'd let her believe she'd done most of the work, before the three of them had carried it back to their home. Together, the three of them had strung popcorn and cranberries, and each of them had worked to make ornaments out of paper and string and anything else they could find. They decorated their tree and admired it from the comfort of their living room couches.

Like all new parents, Daryl and Carol loved their brand-new baby girl very much, but their first six months as her parents were exhausting. Although she was seventeen years old, and she could feed and bathe herself, she required a great deal of their care and attention. She was prone to getting into trouble, so one of them nearly had to be on call, at all times, to help if she had some kind of outburst. They had to work with the community to make sure that their daughter was accepted and treated fairly. They had to talk to other parents about the behavior of their children and the importance of teaching them tolerance—and the realization that Lydia was not responsible for the actions of her biological parents. Nobody, as Carol and Daryl had finally come to truly accept after a great deal of soul-searching, could be held responsible for the actions of others—no matter how much that "other" might have insisted on passing their guilt.

Like all new parents, Daryl and Carol stayed up many nights of those first few months together. Their daughter didn't sleep through the night, and she cried at night. Her crying couldn't be soothed with a bottle, but it could be soothed, most times, with listening, reassurance, and cuddling. Those late nights were good for everyone, really, because Lydia wasn't the only one who had demons to deal with in the dark.

And, like all new parents, Daryl and Carol were as exhausted as much as they were thrilled by their daughter's progress through their first few months together. Like all new parents, they sometimes craved each other. They sometimes craved the quiet togetherness that was rarely allowed to them when they had Lydia to care for.

So, they were thrilled when, one snowy night, they found Lydia so preoccupied with helping Judith and RJ make Christmas ornaments that she wouldn't notice their absence. They snuck out the house, certain that Michonne would be more than happy to watch her a bit since they had often repaid the favor, in advance, and they disappeared to the farthest stretches of the community where it was quiet. Near the far walls, it was mostly dark and mostly quiet. Nobody came that far unless they were on guard. And, these days, things were safe enough that guards had been posted at the four corners of the community, with one in the watchtower, and a foot patrol only made the rounds once every half hour or so.

They had only meant to escape the spaces where they'd felt confined for a bit. They'd only meant to step outside of the life that they'd made for themselves for a moment and, perhaps, hold hands while they walked in the snow.

But holding hands had quickly turned to holding each other.

A few kisses in, and the hunger to enjoy each other in the absolute silence and solitude had taken over.

"I'ma get frostbite on my dick," Daryl had said when Carol went for his belt.

"I'll have you covered," she'd offered with an impish giggle that had only driven Daryl's urge to do foolish things.

"Your ass'll freeze," he'd warned her as she'd been the one to start unbuttoning her own pants as he kissed her against the far-east wall.

"Then, you better keep me covered," Carol teased when the kiss broke. She nipped his lip. "Make it quick—I don't need long. Unless—you're really scared you'll freeze?"

Daryl laughed at how quickly she shifted from seductive to concerned. Even as she assumed the most vulnerable position she could, with her hands against the wall in something like surrender, and looked back at him over her shoulder, Daryl could tell that she would end it all immediately if that's what he wanted.

He responded to her only by sinking into her entirely and leaning his face against her shoulder for a second—overwhelmed by the feeling that overcame him any time they were together.

"You keep me plenty hot," Daryl assured her.

She moaned at him.

"Then why don't you get moving so you can warm us both up?" Carol growled at him.

They were both so hungry for the encounter and the few precious moments of being somewhere where nobody knew where they were, that the encounter hardly lasted long enough for Daryl's exposed skin to start to register the cold surrounding them. They were working their way back into their clothes and kissing each other tenderly—as an attempt to hold onto the rush of affection that flooded them both—before the sweat was even cooling on either of them.

Still, the few moments together left Daryl with a euphoria that made him feel practically high. He walked with Carol's hand trapped tightly in his back to the main part of Alexandria. He dropped his arm around her shoulder and stole a kiss from her as they turned on the street that led to Michonne's house. He rubbed her shoulder and dropped his hand to the small of her back as they mounted the steps to the porch together.

He couldn't help but smile to himself when the door opened just as Carol put her hand on the knob. Michonne stood in the doorway with Lydia, Judith, and RJ just behind her and peeking around her.

"Where were you?" Lydia asked. Her eyes were wide and she might have been a little panicked, but she was safe with Michonne. "We went to the house and you weren't there either."

"I told her you were probably—giving her a little space," Michonne offered.

"That's exactly what we were doing," Carol agreed warmly. "We were just—giving you a little room to…breathe. Without us here. Without us up under you. Look at how—wonderful—you did!"

Lydia stayed right where she was and regarded them. Without any notice that they were pink-cheeked and standing on the porch, everyone stayed right where they were. Slowly, Lydia's expression softened from the near-panic. She nodded her head gently.

"It was fine," Lydia said softly, clearly deciding that she accepted Carol's explanation for their brief absence. "What were you doing?"

"We were…" Carol started. She hesitated. Too long. Lydia started to look concerned.

"I wanted to go—caroling," Daryl said quickly. Carol exchanged a look with him, but she was quickly to wipe it away and jump on board. Daryl swallowed back his amusement. "I wanted to go caroling," he reaffirmed. "In the snow."

Daryl didn't miss Michonne's expression, either, but she was a mother, too, and was able to wipe it away quickly.

"I'd like to go caroling," Lydia said almost mournfully.

"Maybe we'll—go sing Christmas carols some night together," Carol offered. "All of us."

Satisfied with that, Lydia turned to head fully into the house and to follow the children who had lost interest in them. Michonne backed up to allow Carol and Daryl to pass inside.

"Yeah," Daryl agreed. "Maybe—we'll take you carolin' sometime."

"The kind that involves music," Michonne mused, her voice barely loud enough for Daryl to hear as he passed by her—brushing against her as she allowed him the space to come through the door.

Still, Daryl heard Carol laugh quietly to herself as she followed Lydia to let the young girl show off her newly-made Christmas decorations.

Daryl thought that, maybe, a little Christmas caroling could easily become his favorite holiday tradition.


End file.
